Staten Island Congressman’s Fraud Trial to Start After Fall Elections

The federal fraud trial of Representative Michael G. Grimm will begin on Dec. 1, clearing what could have been a substantial obstacle to his re-election efforts.

The trial date was set on Tuesday at a hearing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

The fraud charges have been a focal point in the contest for Mr. Grimm’s seat in the 11th Congressional District, which encompasses Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. Mr. Grimm is the only Republican in New York City’s congressional delegation, and is running for a third term against Domenic M. Recchia Jr., a Democrat.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running two television advertisements, one of which it introduced on Monday, that highlight the fraud charges. Both use clips from a news conference that the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta E. Lynch, held to announce the 20-count indictment against Mr. Grimm in April.

After delving for more than two years into Mr. Grimm’s campaign finances, federal authorities ended up charging Mr. Grimm with underreporting wages and revenues while he was running a Manhattan health-food restaurant between 2007 and 2010.

Even the trial date was at issue: On Tuesday, Mr. Grimm’s lawyers asked the judge to push the trial to January, citing the Democrats’ ads. “We’re concerned about ensuring Mr. Grimm has a fair trial,” said a lawyer, Jeffrey A. Neiman, asking for a “cooling-off period, postelection,” in case potential jurors had seen the ads.

Judge Pamela K. Chen instead went with the trial date the government had suggested. “Given the nature of the publicity up until now,” she said, “we’re not going to get much of a break” by delaying the trial a month.

“I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to find a jury who hasn’t heard anything about this case,” whether the trial begins in December or January, Judge Chen added, but the court would address that during jury selection.

She said she had expected Mr. Grimm’s lawyers to take issue with the October trial date that prosecutors proposed at an earlier hearing, and to argue that a trial before Election Day — which is Nov. 4 — would be too difficult. “That,” she said, “I was somewhat sympathetic to.”

Mr. Grimm left the courthouse without making a statement, accompanied by his lawyers and John Antonello, the Staten Island Republican Party chairman.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Congressman’s Fraud Trial to Start After Fall Elections. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe